“What are our options for appealing the emergency entry?” Thomas asked.

Mark Vance, seated at the head of the table, didn’t lift his eyes from his yellow legal pad.

“There are no legal grounds for an appeal,” Vance said.

“The judge ruled that the open emergency line established an immediate physical threat.”

Pendelton pushed the six-page document two inches nearer to Thomas’s hands.

“If we go to a public trial, the prosecution will play the entire dispatch recording in open court,” Pendelton said.

“Every second of those footsteps on the floorboards will come out of the courtroom speakers,” Pendelton went on.